Pop LifeSociety, life and culture on the edge2015-03-31T10:54:24Zhttp://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/feed/atom/Una Mullallyhttp://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/?p=56102015-03-31T10:54:24Z2015-03-31T10:40:13ZMaybe Tidal will be massively successful. But here are 99 problems I’ve identified.

1. Streaming is part of the new music industry paradigm, the musicians on the stage are part of the old music industry paradigm.

2. Jay Z wants musicians to get their labels to give Tidal exclusivity to new releases for a week. But Jay Z doesn’t employ these musicians. Why should they listen to him?

3. What’s in it for the kid in her bedroom starting out making tunes who is going to be putting everything on Soundcloud anyway?

4. Beats is already on the hunt. Apple already has a successful music distribution company in iTunes, which has inexplicably failed to keep up with the times. But with Beats Music, Apple has something Tidal doesn’t have to make it work when it launches this year: loads and loads and loads and loads of money.

5. Why are the oldies always repping new ventures? U2 and Apple, Jay Z and Tidal? Meanwhile, the kids are just getting on with it.

6. Youngsters won’t pay. Spotify and Netflix are the limit. But when you grow up with music and TV and movies on tap, why would you turn around and start paying?

7. Sound quality doesn’t matter. If it did, people wouldn’t watch most of their music on YouTube.

8. When people say sound quality does matter, they’re fronting, because they’re just buying into a new sound quality gimmick. I threw my Beats out a few months after buying them. They actually made me so frustrated because the fake bass was so irritating and false in its fidelity.

9. People say Spotify is successful at making people pay, so Tidal could be too. Really? Because 45 million of Spotify’s 60 million use it for free.

11. Labels can be full of crap. Universal might get angry about free streaming, yet labels are the first to push the PR narrative of YouTube stars.

12. Many of the artists who lined up for Tidal feel like label execs. Hell, some of them are.

13. Everyone is talking about streaming services as if they’re the only place you can get music. A lot of people still just download stuff without paying a cent.

14. It sounds like a washing detergent

15. You can’t make people pay straight away.

16. Free tiers are gateways. If you don’t have one, you’re missing out on a large chunk of a customer base you can subsequently convert. I used Spotify for free with the ads initially. Now I pay.

17. Artists aren’t tech gurus.

18. Success is a catalyst for failure. People mess up when they seek to expand beyond what they’re good at. You see it all the time; a chain goes for one cafe too many, a media company buys something outside its area of expertise. Sure, 50 has the Vitamin Water, Diddy has the vodka, and will.i.am keeps talking BS about 3D printing, but how many ventures last beyond gimmick stage?

19. There’s the millionaire problem. Is this a streaming service for artists or for business people? The people on the stage are essentially the suits of the industry.

20. The days of bombastic launches are over. Stuff grows organically.

21. Fans want to discover new ways to access things. They don’t want stuff shoved down their throat.

22. RE: Jay Z. Would you really take tech advice from someone who did that deal with Samsung?

23. The big guns do and don’t really matter. If you’re already a fan of Taylor Swift or Daft Punk or Arcade Fire, you’re going to have their records.

24. The old music industry still serves some of these people. It’s funny to see Beyonce front and centre, when her last record sold (SOLD) nearly 830,000 copies in the first three days of its availability.

25. What’s in it for the newbies?

26. Unfortunately consumers don’t care about where profits go, or where the goods originate from. People want things fast, easily and cheap/free. If consumers wanted quality and ethical origins and profit shares, then pretty much every industry from food to fashion would be completely upturned.

27. Alicia Keys quoted Nietzsche. I don’t think he was a great businessman.

28. It’s vague. Artists speak in PR language now. They don’t need their labels to do that for them. “Preserve music’s importance in our lives”, “exclusive experiences”. What does that mean? Cut through the crap, please.

29. People are more interested in musicians making music rather than making money.

30. This is a top down approach, whereas the new industry is bottom up approach. Labels dictated things for years, which is why you’ve got all those overpriced CDs in a box somewhere. Alicia Keys sounded like a label exec. Stop boardroom dictating, start creating.

31. I want artists to make more money and to make a decent living doing what they do. But shouldn’t labels and artists be looking at how current services could be fairer?

32. People don’t want barriers to listening to music. I didn’t bother checking out Magna Carta Holy Grail immediately. There was a barrier. And I’m a Jay Z fan.

33. Music journalism and tech journalism combined follow the flashing lights, not the real crowd. So Tidal will get loads of vaguely positive and interested press in legacy media. That doesn’t really mean anything.

35. Jay Z said he hopes Tidal will inspire artists to take creative risks, as if this is the first platform that doesn’t have the constraints of time that other formats do. How? Why? That’s a load of rubbish.

37. Would people be talking about Tidal if Jay Z and co hadn’t invested? No. It only has half a million users. Let’s see how that grows.

38. There’s a distinct aura of self-serving about this rather than all-serving.

39. Spotify has a problem with paying artists so little. Funnily enough, the fans don’t seem to care about that.

40. The musicians who really hurt are those in debt from borrowing to make their debut record, who struggle to eat on tour, who spend most of their time working other jobs when they should be rehearsal room or studio. The Tidal line-up feels like the antithesis to the blue-collar artist. Y’all made it already.

41. The distribution methods in the industry have changed forever. The big labels couldn’t claw it back, and neither will the big artists.

43. Fans want the biggest catalogue. They don’t want to search a streaming service to find the song they want to listen to right now isn’t there. Exclusivity hurts everyone.

44. I don’t want hyperbole. I want tunes.

45. If these artists wanted to own everything, why did they sign to majors in the first place? They’re not stupid. They knew what that meant.

46. What are the details? Does every artist who signs up to Tidal own a stake in it?

47. Does this mean Tidal artists would take their music off other streaming services?

48. I’m sure plenty of artists are happy with the millions of plays they’re getting on Spotify, the sales they’re getting on iTunes, and the views they’re getting on YouTube.

49. Musicians should know business, but business shouldn’t be their primary focus. Art needs to be the priority.

50. The Future Of Music. We’ve heard that one before.

51. At the launch, guests could listen to tunes on Sennheiser headphones and Samsung tablets. Meanwhile, in the real world, the kids listen to music using Beats headphones off their iPhones.

52. You can’t ignore the technology or the hardware that already exists.

53. If people cared about sound quality, then you wouldn’t see so many people still using the Apple headphones they get free with their iPad or iPhone.

54. On “lossless” audio – the wind has already gone out of Pono’s sails, if you ask me. Can Tidal change that? High definition sound has always been a niche product. The suits in their bachelor pads had Bose speakers, but the real fans were still rocking a Discman on the bus on the way to school.

55. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Everyone can’t be an entrepreneur.

56. In the realm of streaming, there are sharks and minnows, there is no in between.

57. I still can’t believe there’s no free option.

58. 80% of Spotify’s 15 million users who pay, used the free version first.

63. Major labels want to do away with free services. Considering the state the majors got the industry into, do artists think they should be following what the majors want right now when it comes to distribution?

64. “The Internet is all about accessing entertainment. Realistically, 50 to 80 percent of all traffic is people downloading stuff for free. If you can turn that huge market share into something that you can monetize, even if it is just with ads, you will end up making more money than with all other revenue streams combined.” – Kim Dotcom

65. There’s a problem with “Streaming Wars” in general. No one benefits from war. Either people come up with a diplomatic solution together as a whole, or people die.

66. Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, Tidal, they’re all looking at the same thing. Slicing and dicing pieces of the same pie isn’t innovation.

67. Tidal is not a new idea.

68. Tidal is announcing itself as big before it is big. It all feels very Jobriath.

69. Spotify didn’t need celebrity endorsement.

70. I want to know what Amanda Palmer thinks. What Richard Russell thinks.

71. Artists make a mistake about exclusive content. Ultimately, it ends up not being about making fans special for accessing it, but making fans annoyed for not being able to access it. And when it fails, it hurts that they didn’t love you enough.

72. I don’t care about high definition music videos on Tidal. Vimeo is fine.

73. Spotify needs to do something about its royalty rates now. If that’s the only complaint the company has aimed at it, then if they fix it even a little, the criticism will disappear.

74. I read an article that referred to Tidal’s “CD-quality streaming”. If people who grew up with mp3s want nice fidelity, they turn to vinyl, not CDs. You might as well be talking about LaserDiscs.

75. I can listen to Taylor Swift on YouTube.

76. Universal. Most of the people on the stage? Universal artists.

77. $56 million is cheap in the tech world. Not in the music world.

78. I wonder what Music Key has up its sleeve?

79. The music industry is a class system. It’s Downton Abbey. Up in the drawing room, the Lords and Ladies are talking about their new toy. Down in the scullery, the masses are scrubbing the floors. And to the viewers – the fans – it’s all just entertainment.

80. I want to know what the people in steerage think. The jobbing musicians. The acts who are as far away from Bey and Jay as you and I.

81. Stop talking about “movements”. This is not a movement. It’s just another streaming service.

82. ‘Ad-free’ isn’t a big plus when you have to pay for something. Ad-free is a plus when something is free and you still don’t have to listen or watch ads. People don’t care about ads. If they did, the Spotify free tier wouldn’t be successful.

83. Tidal has 25 million tracks. But once you get into those kind of numbers, do they even matter? Four million tracks on Spotify have never even been played. There’s not enough time in a lifetime to listen to dozens of millions of songs.

84. Streaming is not show business.

85. If they wanted to make a big splash, they should have pushed people towards the service straight away. The actual streaming service – and not the weird press conference – would have been the thing getting traction if there had been a new Kanye / Rihanna / WTT2 record up on there.

86. This doesn’t feel collective, it feels exclusive.

87. At least there wasn’t an attempt to build a platform from scratch, but by latching on to something that already exists, it does lessen the wow-factor.

88. I’d be interested in a PR launch that saw Spotify announcing that they were going to work more closely with artists to create a better royalty system that rewarded their musical output in a more fair way.

89. Making more money for artists only really sounds good when there aren’t really rich people talking about it. It’s like a bunch of property developers standing on a stage bitching about a mansion tax.

90. #TIDALforALL is a terrible hashtag.

91. I want to see things broken down in simple terms that we can understand. I want to see the breakdown of the royalties. Gimme a neat infographic that explains how Tidal is going to be better for the artist.

92. The images of musicians signing what they were signing. So overly serious. So old school. You’re not outside Buckingham Palace with A&M, lads.

93. Pretentiousness is off-putting.

94. I think artists collaborating and banding together is great. But there’s a vibe of “when Jay Z says jump, you jump” about Tidal.

95. “Water is free,” said Jay Z. No it isn’t. Get a better analogy.

96. “I just want to be an alternative,” Jay Z said. “They don’t have to lose for me to win.” That doesn’t sound like Jay-speak. You don’t set out to be an alternative at his level, you set out to be the boss. Is he playing the underdog card, or already aware of the limitations of what Tidal is setting out to do?

97. I think people who are really rich are still entitled to complain about losing out, no matter how much that might grate. But if you want to change the music industry (and all the hyperbole at the launch indicated that they do), then you have to change it from the bottom up, not for those who have already got there.

98. Artists can try and take and get as much control as they want, but the label system still exists because within the labels there is still the expertise around how to break an act – no matter how much the majors have failed to adapt to the contemporary industry. An act aiming to be mainstream starting out simply can’t become a hydra that employs and manages marketing, distribution, artwork, release schedules, licensing, publishing, songwriting, production, PR, tour management, live production, etc. etc. Labels still break big acts. They still fail a lot. They still take a chance on an interesting new artist. And that’s why labels still exist, because who else is going to do that?

]]>0Una Mullallyhttp://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/?p=56052015-03-30T09:15:26Z2015-03-30T07:06:52ZOn this week’s episode of Ceol, I sit down to have the chats with the fascinating and compelling Angel Olsen. Her record Burn Your Fire For No Witness was one of my favourites of last year, so it was really interesting to talk to her about her music.

]]>0Una Mullallyhttp://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/?p=55912015-03-24T16:38:46Z2015-03-24T11:42:22ZDan Griffin has been reporting from the squat in Grangegorman, where a sudden attempted eviction took place yesterday. The squat has been through eviction attempts before. But this time, it seemed to draw a lot of heat, as well as press for a space in the city few talk about.

I believe that we should have proper squatters’ rights in this country. If a space is empty, and people secure it safely to live in it, then why not?

A squat is not just about living somewhere, it is about creating an alternative way of living by doing. There is huge power in showing what can be possible without rent rises and landlords and estate agents and letting agents and developers and the anonymous international buyers currently scoffing up Dublin land in NAMA deals.

This system of land ownership only exists to benefit those on the top rung of the market. You only have to look at who is positioned at the bottom of the pile to see where the ownership of land holds its priorities. In Ireland right now, we have a crisis of homelessness. We have a social housing crisis. We have a student housing crisis. We have a rental market crisis. Yet the biggest story about a house this year? A millionaire and his family getting turfed out of a mansion.

I’ve only been up to the squat in Grangegorman once, for an event that was the best thing I’ve been at in I don’t know how long. At Words In The Warehouse, people gathered to read poetry and play music. Although the air was cold, the crowd was warm. The spoken word was funny, brilliant, sad, personal, reactionary, bold, political, complex. The music was beautiful, eccentric, traditional, progressive. I went home with my heart, brain, and spirit full. It felt like something was really going on. It felt like energy.

What is happening in Grangegorman creatively is probably the truly most interesting thing happening in the city right now; the use of space, the philosophy of that use, the creative output, the types of gatherings, the vibe. I don’t know much about the wider living situation there, but I do know that when something interesting is happening it should be celebrated, not punished. But the powers that be are so terrified of anything alternative in this city. Post-boom, post-crash, a vanilla urban environment with conservative aspirations is being constructed and regulated around us, which is profoundly anti-creative and incredibly boring. Occasionally smart people with great ideas burst through and do interesting things, but very little enables them, and inevitably, the red tape entangles them. And god help you if you don’t have commercial aspirations! Everything is about the market. Everything is about capitalism. Everything is about consumerism. Everything is about money. Everything is about earning. Everything is about spending. Those are the markers of success! Yeah right. That worked out well last time, didn’t it?

Grangegorman is the opposite of all the bland stuff around us. It is vibrant. The complex is vast and beautiful. They really have hacked the city. But one of the most interesting things about the squat is that it is utterly rare. Right now, Ireland has another crisis – especially in the city. We have a crisis of cultural and creative space. Warehouses are being bought up by anonymous developers. Studios are shutting down. Collectives have to be transient, which is terrible, because it means ideas can’t take hold in a physical space. Yet amongst this dullness there are so many sparks. The DIY punk spaces. The queer film nights. The secret afterhours spots. These are our network of underground escape tunnels from the beigeness above.

I have no doubt that the squatters and their supporters will be depicted negatively by those whose imaginations are too small to see beyond a way of living that is drilled into them from a young age. There is nothing wrong with doing things differently. In fact, it’s where all the interesting things come from.

So, solidarity with squatters. We need to take back our city from the army of bores.

photo of banners by Dan Griffin, photo of squat garden by William Hederman.

]]>0Una Mullallyhttp://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/?p=55832015-03-19T12:17:20Z2015-03-19T12:17:20ZEmpire is breaking records all over the place. The Fox show which focusses on Luciuos Lyon, a record label mogul with a knife-sharp ex-wife, and three sons (the rapper, the RnB singer, the businessman), trying to move his empire into the stratosphere, has been a massive hit for the network.

The numbers are crazy. “We’re starting to run out of ways to praise the ratings for Fox’s Empire,” said Entertainment Weekly. In fact, the only comparison is that Empire is now breaking its own records. People are watching in massive numbers, tweeting in massive numbers, the thing is huge.

I flagged Empirelast June (#justsayin). I love it. So this is my take on Why Empire Works

1. Escapism
As Vulture points out in The Empire Effect, audiences were ready for a show that was just fun. It’s been a while since a Desperate Housewives or Entourage has lit up the small screen. Hell, Empire owes as much to Dallas and Dynasty as it does to Nashville or Scandal. I’ve taken a break from television that focusses too much on brutality or grit. I can’t watch The Fall because I can think of nothing more grim than sitting down to watch something about sexual violence. I’m done with the conveyor belt of dramas about murder. Empire is GOOD FUN.

2. Ilene Chaiken
Chaiken must have done a lot of soul-searching when The L Word ended, with fans baffled author the final season descended into a farcical whodunnit. Now Chaiken has got her groove back as Empire‘s showrunner. At 57-years-old, Chaiken has the experience needed to make quality, accessible, mainstream TV, that has a camp enough edge. Chaiken made landmark television with 70 episodes of The L Word, reaching an audience that television execs probably didn’t think was there. And she also knows the reality TV game, with The Real L Word. And remember, she worked on a show with an African-American cast before too, as the coordinating producer on Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Her 10,000 hours have been clocked.

3. The music
The Empire soundtrack is now No. 1 on the U.S. album chart. This show is taking over. Music is intrinsic to the programme, and they had to get it right. Sure, a lot of it is cheesy, but it still pops. And Timbaland was the EXACT person they should have brought in as the executive music producer.

5. Blurring lines between TV and real life
With The L Word, Chaiken had a penchant for dropping in real life references; Olivia cruises, Dinah Shore, a music video shoot for The Organ, The B52s, Snoop Dogg as ‘Slim Daddy’, Heart, Ariana Huffington, Sleater-Kinney, Russell Simmons, Tegan and Sara and Goldfrapp all featured in The L Word. One of the joys of Entourage was the cameos from actors and celebrities, because it gave that show a sense of fun and in-jokes. Empire plays the same trick, with references to real-life stars such as Lana Del Rey, as well as dropping in well known faces as versions of themselves, such as Courtney Love’s brilliant character, the washed up drug-addict singer who’s trying to get herself back on track, or Naomi Campbell as an aloof love interest. They even had Sway conduct an interview! Sway!

6. Soap works
Shonda Rhimes knows that – which is why Greys Anatomy has such incredible longevity, and Scandal is so brilliantly, hilariously, leap-of-faith enjoyable. Sometimes an audience doesn’t want five-minute tracking shots, or claustrophobic single-scene episodes, or endless symbolism and metaphors, or dream sequences. Sometimes an audience wants to follow a family, a business, a drama populated with great characters even if they are well-worn archetypes. Empire has just the right amount of soap amongst the bottles of bubbles.

7. There’s never been a big, populist, successful hip-hop show before
We have detective shows and high school musical shows, medical shows and political shows, cop shows and period dramas, shows about acting and shows about detectives, shows about gangs and shows about vets, shows about vampires and shows about prisons, shows about zombies and shows about war, shows about terrorism and shows about drugs. But there’s never been a big, populist TV show before based in the hip-hop world that works, despite hip-hop being such a massive part of popular culture everywhere. When you actually think about it, it’s a no brainer. That said, it’s worth revisiting Platinum.

8. Guess what, black viewers want to watch black characters
Most of the media is controlled by white, middle-aged, middle-class men, so again and again, we get films and television shows coming from this perspective. It’s like when Disney made Frozen and it became the most gigantic thing ever and everyone went “wow! Imagine! If you make a film with a lead female it’ll actually sell!” Well guess what, if you make a television show with a largely black cast, it’ll reach people you’re not already reaching with the endless array of white characters on television. And more than that, it’s not like white people or any other race won’t watch something just because the people in the show don’t have the same skin colour as them.

9. It’s essentially a family show
Do you want your kids to watch Breaking Bad or The Killing? Would you be cool with your kids watching The Fall? Empire fuses gloss and grit expertly. There’s no gratuitous swearing, there are plenty of comedic moments, there’s a lot about familial loyalty and love, there’s plenty about business and working your way out of the ghetto, there’s a lot of aspirational stuff, but also a lot about the evils of success and money. There are no hardcore sex scenes or over the top violence. The more people who can watch a show, the more people it will reach.

10. It breaks groundEmpire won’t have the critics falling over themselves like they did over True Detective or Borgen, but that doesn’t mean it’s not breaking ground. Having a gay character exist in the hip-hop world on TV is breaking ground. Sure, Empire isn’t stylishly cinematic, but the costume is great, the casting is fantastic, the music video shoots are fun, and even though talent singing competitions are waning, Empire shows there’s still room for musical performance in TV drama.

]]>0Una Mullallyhttp://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/?p=55442015-03-16T07:57:31Z2015-03-18T08:34:06ZSOAK (Bridie Monds-Watson) is a musician from Derry who made the BBC Sound of 2015 list. Her debut album Before We Forgot How to Dream will be released on May 29th on Rough Trade.

What are you reading?
Re-reading The Catcher In The Rye

Last film you saw and your verdict?
I’m really boring with films because I stick to the same genre: Feelgood Comedy, everything else makes me think too much and when I watch a movie I kind of want my brain to melt, in a non-thinky way. I think the last movie I watched full way through was Me & Irene or Me, Myself & Irene is that what its called? Yeah it was good, I didn’t see anything coming.

Last gig/concert you went to and your verdict?
I saw Novelist last week at By:Larm in Norway and he put on an incredible show. He also has a brilliant DJ with him. Crowd loved it.

Last stage production you saw and your verdict?
I had a night off in London recently and Ticketmaster kindly gave me tickets to Miss Saigon which is this musical about the Vietnam war and prostitution ( and other things). The production was exceptional, helicopters on stage, fireworks. Ten out of Ten.

Last gallery / museum / exhibition you visited and your verdict?
I went to the British Museum today and saw the mummy exhibition. It was great, empty because it was early on a weekday. I really love all that history museum type stuff so I had a great time. Being so close to actual mummified corpses definitely made me feel a big grossed out though. I don’t think I can criticise history?

You have a golden ticket to Easons, what magazine is first on your list?
Is this real life or for the sake of this interview? I buy a lot of magazines and usually only read half of them. I’d probably buy the Sound On Sound first then The Guardian. Super boring sorry.

What are your most clicked bookmarks?
Band sessions, Adventure Time, Wikipedia pages.

Do you have a favourite podcast or radio programme?
Adventure Time

When you fall into a YouTube hole what’s the general subject matter of the videos you’re watching?
It differs, I get stuck in a weird music wormhole, weird fact videos but also end up on Buzzfeed regularly melting my brain.

What song should we listen to right now?
Sivu – ’The Nile’, or Ibeyi – ‘Oya’

Which boxset/TV series do you have on the go at the moment?
None, I think the only box sets I’ve ever really got into is The Simpsons, Orange Is The New Black and Skins.

Which app do you use the most?
comic sans

Do you play video games or mobile platform games, and if so, what’s your favourite at the moment?
I’ve a PS4 and I love GTA V on it but I don’t use it very much because I’m never home. I’ve a backflip game on my phone that I use when I’m super bored and on transport.

What is your favourite club night of all time?
Ha, I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a ‘club’ night. Love a good ‘old mans pub’. I’ve had a ton of good pub nights though, broke a skateboard in half with a friend once on the way home because it ‘’seemed like a good idea’’.

What was the last country you visited and what were you doing there?
I thiiiiiink it was Ireland, if it was then I was there surprising my best friend on her 18th. She didn’t think I was coming. The night before I was in Norway.

If you could transport one international cultural outlet to your home town, what would it be and why?
The KoKo in London complete with gig line up. Theres not much of a gig scene where I live at the moment.

And finally, if you listen to one new act this week make it…
The Japenese House – Still.

]]>0Una Mullallyhttp://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/?p=55702015-03-16T09:26:03Z2015-03-16T09:26:03ZWant to do something on St. Patrick’s Day that doesn’t involve fist-pumping with St. Patty’s Day bros, screaming children, or neon Irish dancing costumes? Never fear, there’s actually loads of great stuff to do in Dublin this St. Patrick’s Eve and Day.

EVEÉiru @ IMMA
Body & Soul are putting on this bash at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, with a cracking line-up; Lamb, Jape, Katie Kim, Landless, Donal Dineen, and more. There’s also a feast in the vaults whipped up by Katie Sanderson (Living Dinners, The Hare, Dillisk) and Keith Coleman (The Fumbally Cafe). There’s visual art from Guerrilla Shout, and Tonie Walsh will be playing tunes at the cocktail bar.
Tickets from €39.50

Fight Like Apes and Bitch Falcon @ the Sugar ClubTwo of my favourite Irish bands, hit up the Sugar Club for some pre-Paddys shenanigans. Fight Like Apes will be playing tunes from their upcoming third record, and Bitch Falcon will be rocking out as only they can. If you want to get a little bit rowdy and see some quality live music, then this is for you.
€10 in advance, €12 on the door.

Jackmaster and Krystal Klear @ PYG/Powerscourt
Pygmalion extends out into the Powerscourt centre for this show from the 24-hour-party-person that is Jackmaster, and the slickness that is Krystal Klear.
€15-€25, sold out online.

Ana Matronic @ Mother
The badass queen of the Sister Sisters hits up Mother, who’ve moved to the Hangar to accommodate this kiki. Mother’s main man Ghostboy will also be DJing, along with Glamo, and Faune will also be playing live. Ana Matronic’s taste in disco is impeccable, so don’t have to get up early on St. Patrick’s Day? Love great tunes? Have a pulse? This is your party.
€15

Nina Kraviz @ District 8
The Siberian techno DJ knows how to go hard, so if you want to go home, then head to Francis Street, for a venue whose listings are generally pretty sparse when it comes to female acts.
€18

Cities Breathing @ Great Denmark Street
A contemporary visual art project of moving images of Dublin, with the scores for these three short films created by New Jackson, I Am The Cosmos and Clu.
€10

DAYTelephones – Snakes Out PartyA school yard party that kicks off at 2pm organised by Telephones, Discotekken and The Locals.
€15

Paddy’s Day Unlocked
Meeting House Square will most likely become an oasis in Temple Bar on St. Patrick’s Day with Happenings putting together an all-ages space sans alcohol. Nialler9 has selected the music, with Ensemble Ériu and Hare Squead playing.
€5 (free for under 12s)

Egyptian Lover @ Grand Social
Legendary old school LA electro with a funk edge. Timing saw some of his work eclipsed by gangsta rap, maybe, but this shit is sophisticated.
€5

]]>0Una Mullallyhttp://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/poplife/?p=55672015-03-18T17:14:48Z2015-03-16T08:06:57Z*update: this episode will air on March 24th*

This week on Ceol ar an Imeall (TG4, Tuesday at 9.30pm and Saturday at 10.05pm) I sit in a yurt with Bombay Bicycle Club and ask them how they became such a giant band.

Live in studio, we’ve got two sessions from two Ceol ar an Imeall returnees, who have both developed their sound considerably since they performed on the show.

We Cut Corners displayed at the Choice Music Prize gig earlier this month how they’re still one of the most intriguing Irish acts around. They’ll be bringing the noise in studio. Check out We Cut Corners video ‘This Is Then’:

And Elaine Mai has evolved into a fascinating songwriter and producer. She’ll be showing why she’s one to keep an eye on with some tunes live in Ceol studios. I’m really digging Elaine’s remix of Sleep Thieves ‘High’, which you can listen to here.